Nick Mullins

Article by Chris Pitt

Nicholas Charles Mullins was born in Acton, London on June 21, 1938 and was apprenticed to Willie Stephenson. His first winner (on the Flat) was on the Eric Cousins-trained Lindy in an apprentices’ race at Manchester on June 4, 1955.

His second winner was also in an apprentices’ race, aboard Fred Rimell’s Easter Fable at Warwick on April 16, 1956, his third coming on the same horse in the corresponding race the following year. Those were Nick’s only Flat race wins as he turned his attention to jumping, his first success under National Hunt rules being on Willie Stephenson’s Starlit II at Southwell on December 18, 1957. He rode four more winners that term, two for Stephenson and two late-season victory’s on Philip Allingham’s hurdler Jimmy Rivett.

The 1958/59 campaign was easily Nick’s best for he rode a total of eleven winners. Willie Stephenson’s staying hurdler Lintlaw contributed four of them, with four more coming from Michelangelo, trained by Bill Holden at Newmarket, culminating in Nick’s highest profile victory, the Hunter Simmonds Handicap Hurdle, worth £1,553 11s to the winner, at Kempton Park on Boxing Day 1958, beating top-class hurdlers Fare Time (2nd), Tokoroa (3rd) and Merry Deal (5th). Nick was reunited with Michelangelo in the Victory Hurdle at Manchester five days later, this time finishing second to Fred Winter on the 1955 Champion Hurdle hero Clair Soleil. Phil Allingham provided the other three of Nick’s winners that season, Jimmy Rivett and novice Pearldom, the latter scoring at Nottingham in December and Hurst Park in January.

He’d gone from a 7lb claimer to a 3lb claimer in little more than two months. Thereafter, however, he never rode more than three winners in a season. The initial signs for 1959/60 were favourable with back-to-back wins on Beaubridge for Epsom trainer Harold Wallington, but the closest he came to another that term was when Beaubridge got within half a length of Gay Kindersley’s mount O’Connell at Huntingdon on Easter Monday.

Peter Ashworth’s four-year-old selling hurdler First National supplied Nick with both of his winners for 1960/61, then followed two blank seasons before Ted Long’s chaser Famous Knight finally broke the drought at Towcester over the 1964 Whitsun weekend. Long also provided Nick with all three of his winners the following season.

After another winnerless campaign in 1965/66, Nick finally struck again on the Dave Hanley-trained Richo’s Slipper in a juvenile selling hurdle at Haydock on November 23, 1966. But the highlight of that season was coming in for a late spare ride on Barberyn in the 1967 Grand National. Barberyn had run in the Topham Trophy just two days earlier, completing the course in rear under Steve Davenport. The horse was due to have been withdrawn from the Grand National and Davenport had gone to ride at Worcester, but a late change of plan left connections searching for a jockey. Nick was at Aintree primarily to lead one up in another race and had been out ‘on the tiles’ the night before, so he was not exactly 100% fit when being booked for the ride on the morning of the race. A 100-1 outsider, Barberyn was prominent throughout the first circuit before eventually refusing four from home. Nick said later that the horse had given him a great ride up to that point.

Thereafter there was just one winner in each of the next three seasons: Multigrey – who would later become John Francome’s first winner – at Fontwell for permit holder Godfrey Burr; Dave Hanley’s Richo’s Streak at Worcester; and, finally, Hanley’s handicap hurdler Walmer Tower at Towcester on November 1, 1969.

In retirement, Nick lived at Exning, near Newmarket. He died in November 2010, aged 72. He rode a total of 31 winners, 28 over jumps plus three on the Flat, these being:

1. Lindy, Manchester, June 4, 1955

2. Easter Fable Warwick, April 16, 1956

3. Easter Fable, Warwick, April 20, 1957

4. Starlit II, Southwell, December 18, 1957

5. King Borris, Warwick, February 3, 1958

6. Sylph, Market Rasen, May 17, 1958

7. Jimmy Rivett, Towcester, May 26, 1958

8. Jimmy Rivett, Stratford-on-Avon, May 31, 1958

9. Lintlaw, Southwell, September 8, 1958

10. Lintlaw, Southwell, October 13, 1958

11. Jimmy Rivett, Towcester, October 18, 1958

12. Michelangelo, Hurst Park, October 21, 1958

13. Lintlaw, Nottingham, October 28, 1958

14. Lintlaw, Ludlow, October 30, 1958

15. Michelangelo, Stratford-on-Avon, November 1, 1958

16. Michelangelo Warwick, November 11, 1958

17. Pearldom, Nottingham, December 8, 1958

18. Michelangelo, Kempton Park, December 26, 1958

19. Pearldom, Hurst Park, January 7, 1959

20. Beaubridge, Hurst Park, October 20, 1959

21. Beaubridge, Plumpton, November 2, 1959

22. First National, Kempton Park, February 25, 1961

23. First National, Worcester, March 14, 1961

24. Famous Knight, Towcester, May 16, 1964

25. Famous Knight, Cheltenham, October 14, 1964

26. Chinese Prince, Windsor, December 10, 1964

27. Heather Song, Huntingdon, June 7, 1965

28. Richo’s Slipper, Haydock Park, November 23, 1966

29. Multigrey, Fontwell Park, May 2, 1968

30. Richo’s Streak, Worcester, January 27, 1969

31. Walmer Tower, Towcester, November 1, 1969